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University of California Press

In the Bee Latitudes


by ‘Annah Sobelman (Author)
Price: $24.95 / £21.00
Publication Date: Apr 2012
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 104
ISBN: 9780520952379
Series:

Read an Excerpt

T H E    G H O S T S    A R E    D I F F E R E N T    F R O M    T H E

L O V E    O F    S O M E    B R A I N S

the   doves     float  above  the  street ,      back

and  forth and back again        until  one white female   sticks

to the      window pane .                      

                                    Hammerhead    of 

love   landing     on the skull             with  its       calcium

cartons     ,          hunting   for  prey   on  the  ledges   ? —     in  the cartoons  ,

the    slim  shell of bone  opened  and  the   brains   gushed      forth  ’—

 

Do    the  doves    feel    elected  by  what   is   sticky ?    It  isn’t   that  you     

didn ’ t    want   to  be  materialized     at   least    as    corporeal  as    snow 

the   Solstice   loves        ;          but    so  do  ghosts  the   most  frozen

                parts   of     winter      bleed    into              fall    into

us   ,       they ’ ll     beg  ,              almost    soundproof     room        profound   pale     skinniness

through  which     no   one   else   can    shove  — You  are   sympathetic  to  the  pursuit of a

      surface  that    will   not   try to     cap-

 

ture      you       and

call      itself        love  

 


 

I N    T H E    B E E    L A T I T U D E S

Once     the    length     of  the  sun

gets   stuck  on  my   breasts     (   Patti  Smith  wails

 

out   milk   rather   than  purple  on  the  other  side   of   the    bee

       culture )       my  mouth  does   not   tilt   as  much  toward  the   night-

 

life  layers  of  vowels   and  

consonants   before  they   get    said    ,  a    passionate

      

        and  preverbal  shattering  of  one ’ s  ideas  of   restraint  such

 

as   the   children  I   may,  or   may  not  give birth   to—  anyway  , I  had  tasted  the  length

 

of  the   sun  in  the  milky

substances   which  tilt    toward   high   yellower   layers — Later   more  in the

 

mouth   itself   as    longing  — Later   in   the

longness      of  sky     above and

 

beside  ,    in  female  brain               ,  of  male

brain   ,    a   mouth   now     full    of  sun       which   

     

            is  not  yet   purple   ,  still   not   colour  yet    itself    ,

part   of   the   body ’  s  fullest    future     which   the   sun   and  I cannot  seem to get

 

to  the  end   of    But  ,    once   a   mouth  gets  filled    with

the   purple   or    ,     gets     stuck

     

              for   awhile   on   another  human ’  s

breasts ,    it  feels   newborn   and  erotic   to   suck   on  the   beginning  

 

in    this   way    whose   round   long   droopings

have      this       lush   purple   birthmark    on  one  of  their  sides    ,   and  do   not  overshadow

 

the   face  with    aqua   milkiness   ardour    as     ,        if  they’d  been

              tasted  ,   our  mothers ’   breasts   might  have   done      I  sucked   and

        

                sucked   anyway       the  way  I     do      on  one      who   looks   like my  idea  of

Virgil    a     sun   outside   his  knees        hiking  into  the  hills   of

purple  ,  gathering   bees  for

later               Etruscan      smelling         !           

(   my    beginning  also

 

            contemplative   with   the

 

preverbal       /      is    where     the  sun   and   the   mosquitoes  smell    more

like   the   other  side  of  the  bee  culture )  ;  the  mild  awakeness  feeling    of

lying   in  a   hammock      even     overshadowing    my mouth   

 

to   muteness  ,    for    a   while           The   length  of   sun   and    its   tastes  

giving   to  the   human   and   some   parts  of

 

my   unhuman   world  ,     our  futures           

their      full     yellow       valour     are         glints .

And  we   have  had   consciences           of        purple       ,  

 

                except   in    that  haloing  around    bees  

 

which     give      their     multishades

 

to      many     many    many       many   ,   with     a    shove  )    oh    ,      now   less

 

than    a  full    destination   further  off ,   throbbling        

About the Book

In the Bee Latitudes, ’Annah Sobelman’s second book, traverses and choreographs the places of passion where visible and invisible touch. With extraordinary ability to imagine her way far into an experience, making new moves in the English language at each and every point, Sobelman enlists many voices, questions, and bodies (mostly in Taos and Florence) that press toward Emersonian nature. In vibrant, malleable, and layered syntax, these poems break conventions of lineation and punctuation, each utterance at the frontier of the articulate, yet necessarily pitched toward the insistently visceral.

About the Author

The author of The Tulip Sacrament, ’Annah Sobelman is a poet who has recently returned from living in Florence, Italy, to her home in America.

Table of Contents

Proem
Structure — Masolino ’ s Eve — The Female Snake

I
The Ghosts Are Different From the Love of Some Brains
In the Bee Latitudes
The Untitled
The Mess
Midnight Address from the President
Violence of Feathers
Ode to the Surfacing
If A Commandment
Dandelions for the Threnody
After Awhile
Summer ; — Fatigue ; — A Direction , Up ; — and A Spreading Out Unlawed

II ( notes from inside a dark forest )
for whomever whispers
delay is nevertheless
a persona of there you go
forest nightingale makes more
Quick Draft
fresh to make
oh pilgrim
see , it ’ s the no horizon

III
I Felt a Fierce Unfreedom
The Concept Death Was Walking Around This Pill Sentence Structure
It Has Been Given Me To Understand Bats
No Unconceiving Cave
And I Do Desire Your Looking Back
It is Very Sculptural to Wake Up
The Be Thou Gaia Pastoral Air
Not On Its Own
Quick Draft 2
A Physics of Desire
In the Bee Latitudes 2
Curved Over the River
‡ ° § £ ¢ 8 § the haloes on the Barbizon night lanterns
Concerning the Ode to a Focus Then a Free Fall

Acknowledgments
Notes

Reviews

“The second collection of poems—risky and rife with grammatical intensity and simultaneously grounded in the experience of being a woman in the world—marked by a beauty of language and emotion.”
Publishers Weekly